Status Quo
by ownerer117
Summary: What happens when things go wrong? What happens when the impossible happens? This story is about stuff that isn't suppose to happen, at-least that's what they say.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer I do not own the Uglies franchise series or whatever it is.

Part One: Belly of the beast

John's lungs were bursting but he would not give up, he quickly swam through the dead bodies, the blood in the water tainted it a crimson red. He finally reached the whole in the wall where the door had been previously, the sizzling edges were still emanating heat. He pushed off the molten edges, his sneak suit absorbing the brunt of the heat, John then swam out of the sinking tower and started to swim for the surface as fast as he could, but the sad truth slowly came over him. By the time he reached the surface he would drown, leaving an empty shell left, just another corpse to be recovered at the bottom of the river.

He kept swimming but as he got near to the surface the last dregs of his energy gave out, he slowly gave up.

****two weeks earlier ****

"Stop pacing or you'll tear a hole in the floor, and I won't call an ambulance ill just watch you bleed and die" Orin called, from his position on the black velvet couch.

"O ,thanks" John responded, he stopped pacing for a couple of seconds but then continued, walking behind the couch.

"For the last time everything will be fine, the chance of them messing up is like 1 in a trillion" Orin said, knowing what his friend was thinking.

"What about Scep?" John muttered under his breath, Scep was an old friend of both of them, but the surgery did not work out for him; he ended up being recycled into the cities' system, a merciless death. The distorted body that remained was so unrecognizable that a burial was not desired or requested.

"You'll be fine; can you name anyone else that's had the surgery go wrong? ANYONE?" Orin responded, putting so much emphasis on the last bit that John stopped to look at him. They both knew that it was basically impossible for anything bad to happen, it was nearly impossible but, there is always doubt and fear.

A coughing fit fell over John and he looked at the blood that had covered the hand which he had used to cover his mouth.

"When you're pretty that will never happen again." Orin plainly stated as he grabbed a box of tissues and through it over the couch.

John slowly nodded as he thought about what it would be like to live free of his terrible disease, he slowly looked out of his window onto the forest, and he then lifted his gaze to the silhouette. The silhouette was a black patch, that shouldn't exist, all light bended around the human shaped space and laws of physics ceased to apply, he looked at the spot, the hundredth time he had. He thought of all the other uglies that had seen it, his worries of the operation fading away , a complex puzzle always seemed to distract him.

Orin , finishing the soft drink he had been drinking and chucked the empty tin can into the courtyard, hitting the J of a old half ruined sign, a sign that was in rusty days symbolized the town of Jenk.

"As long as you're walking can you hand me another?" Orin asked john who as requested grabbed another and throwing it in the general direction of the couch.

Orin clumsily missed the flying can and then said, "See if I was pretty, like you'll be tomorrow I would have caught that". He slowly bent over to pick up the can, and brushed off the dust that had collected on the floor that had been transplanted onto the can.

John looking over at his friend noticing the floor and the can and said " we should really clean this place up someday" by this place he was referring to the room the 2 of them shared, it was bigger than the average uglie dorm and nicer, a deal that his city had is if you agree to live with someone you will get a nicer and bigger dorm, consisting of a bathroom , den which they were in now and 2 bedrooms which were smaller than average but due to the fact of the quality of the room and the other areas it is usually overlooked.

Orin looked over at his friend; he knew what was going through his mind. He wanted to go and leave this place but at the same time it was the place where he spent the last 4 years. "I'll clean this place, unless you wanna come over and help, get those pretty fingers dirty".

They spent a couple of minutes in awkward silence, if everything went well they, best friends would not see each other for another 4 months.

"going for a ride." John announced as he went to the window and threw his legs onto the waiting hover board.

"Have fun" Orin replied. As John started to ride, entering the awaiting forest, for the millionth time he chased the silhouette, the cities called it a trick of the light but so many uglies have seen it that sometimes people doubt what the city says. After a while he lost the silhouette and just started to ride, he rode low through the trees, the branches tore at his skin but he dint care, once in a while it as nice to lose yourself in something.

"1900 HOURS, 1900 HOURS" a alarm went off as John flew towards the room at high speeds, perfect timing. He jumped off the board through the window, perfectly landing on the couch. The hover board decelerated behind him, coming at a stop outside of the room. Perfect timing for the Perfect TV show.

All the chapters are undergoing constant revision so remember to check back time to time, and please leave comments.


	2. Junk

John looked around, what to bring.

Today was the day when he was suppose to have the surgery, everyone knows that most people recycle or giveaway all there old stuff that they bring, and Johns naturally lazy personality did not want to haul tons of junk from point a to b and not even use it.

The door across the room opened and Orin's head popped out, he took a quick glance at john, seeing the empty bag on the couch and Johns lost look. "Wow you must have packed half the galaxy" Orin remarked, the sleepiness emanating from him.

John looked at his friend, and slowly walked over to the couch and sat down "I just …."

Orin slowly walked over to the couch, just about to pour 2 cups of coffee but realizing that his friend couldn't have any he quickly stopped. "Just let me enjoy this tasty steaming hot, delicious coffee"

John looked up at him, in just 4 hours his friend that he grew up with would look ugly and he would be pretty. Orin slowly walked over and sat down, turning on the wall screen.

"So will you visit?" Orin asked, pretties always say they will but in history none have ever visited there old friends.

"Ya, sure…. All the time." they both knew that even if he thought he was telling the truth, he wouldn't.

4 hours can seem like nothing when you spend it with your best friend, especially when you are doing nothing. The time slipped by without either of them knowing, a silence fell between the two of them over the time.

_Ring, ring, ring _Both Orin and John looked at the hand phone sitting on the table. John reached over and answered "what".

"Is this John Clark"

"Yes"

"A hover car has been sent to your dorm arrival time: 30 minutes"

"K"

The call ended and john looked over at his still empty bag.

Orin noticed this and quickly asked "if you need any help-"

"I'm good" John interrupted standing up.

He walked over to his little room and quickly gazed around. The room consisted of his PC, an ancient computer built from schematics he had found in the cities database, considered crude by modern standards but the rusty's new that sometimes it's nice to feel the computer not just look at buttons and twitch fingers. He realized for the first time that most of the junk he owned was recreations of rusty stuff, his computer, his phone and tons of tiny knick knacks. He stood there for a solid 5 minutes just looking at where he had spent most of the last 5 years. He turned around and started walking to the door, he looked over at Orin "got a present for you" John said nonchalantly he through his keys to Orin and walked out.

"What about your bag"

"It's empty and anyway I don't need that shit"

John walked out of the room and through the hallways that had been his home for the last 4 years; he knew this place like the back of his home. The uglies he passed in the hallways looked at him with a quizzical expression, it was usual for soon to be pretties to be braking there back with carrying tons of junk.

John decided to take the long route, the stairs took a lot longer to get to the roof, the hover car pad but the staircase had glass walls and offered a view of the ugly world, the last look he would have for this place in a long time.

When he reached the top he stood there, waiting for the car. He went to stand by the edge; he stood there for a while, just taking it all in.

As he waited cars arrived and left, but one car was carrying someone that he hoped he wouldn't see. Yura, the teacher that he despised with every ounce of his being.

"Where is your stuff" she said to him with an air of superiority.

"I don't need it "

"Well that is very you, just try not to screw up the operation, like everything else you screwed up"

"So polite of you"

She left, a small group of students greeting her, _fucking teacher's pets _john thought as he saw them leave.

20 minutes passed. He waited for the car and it came, the Red Cross on it distinguishing it from all of the other cars.

John walked up to the car and opened the door and slowly got in.

"John Clark"

"Ya"

"Where's your bag"

"Not bringing anything, don't need it"

"That's very mature of you john, you should be proud"

"So how long will this joy ride be?"

"We should arrive in 2 hours"

"F in suburbs "John muttered "is there a way to go any faster"

"Ya, if you don't mind high gs and some bruises" the driver said with a note of delight in his voice

"Ya sure speed away, new arrival time?" John asked

"Half an hour" the car shot in the air and quickly accelerated, far beyond the recommended speed limits.

The ride was frightening but fun, a last ride before the surgery, a common myth about the surgery is that they remove adrenal glands. Although this has not been confirmed and it's only a rumor, but pretties are always so calm.

Half an hour later they arrived at the hospital, john walked into the waiting room and took a seat. Nothing to do but wait and wait and wait.

This chapter seems, at least to me to be a lot better than the last.


	3. Waiting

John had waited about half an hour, the world lost focus during this time and John did not even noticed that time passed until the nurse came.

"John Clark?" the nurse asked looking at the people in the waiting room.

John stood up and started walking to her "ya, here"

"Come with me"

They started to walk through the hospital, it seemed like hell, so many rooms and hallways and the constant smell of robot cleaned humans and disinfectant.

They arrived at a room with a door labeled _surgery 4,_ the nurse gestured him to go inside, he spotted a tank filled with operating fluids, and he also saw a couple doctors in surgical scrubs standing around preparing.

One of the nurses walked up to john. "I just have to give you this" the nurse said, and injected a green liquid into his neck with a sickly large needle.

And the world lost focus.

*sorry about this chapter but righting block sucks.


	4. Astronomical

"What the…" John looked around at the room he was in, it had a clear view of new pretty town but there was a piece of glass, a wall.

John realized that he was sitting, in an ice cold metal chair. John quickly tried to stand up but restraints around his necks arms and legs held him to the chair. He quickly studied the room looking for anything, a clue, a hint for who was running this hospital, or prison whatever it was.

He sat there for a while, partly admiring the scene but more because he had no way out of his restraints, and even if he did, from where he was standing he could not see any doors or other ways to escape.

Three doctors walked in, coming from behind him and them they strided with the confidence of middle pretties.

"Do you know where you are?" a doctor asked, he seemed to be the leader of the trio, standing in the middle of them.

"How the fuck should I know? In some prison?" John responded spiting the words out.

"No, Mont hospital actually, the same hospital you went to undergo your surgery, there were …." The doctor quietly talked to his colleges and then continued "due to complications we could not start the procedure"

"So this means what? I m gona have to wait a little? HOW LONG?"

"No, by complications I mean we could not carry out the procedure."

John looked at the doctors in disbelief, if what they were saying what was true…

" so you mean I'm still ugly?" john asked in disbelief , the disbelief soon turned to rage as he realized what this means, from what he heard people like this they were outcasts, nobodies, living in hell.

One of the doctors approached John with a mirror, when he looked at the reflection he realized what they were saying was true, he was ugly forever.

**** (time passed) ****

They let him out later; they had explained that the restraints were to stop him from hurting himself, which was extremely common in cases like his. They told him the place he was gona be staying, the west side mansion, and a modern mansion. It was known for being incredibly average, they probably thought it was sweet irony to put him there, but that's the government. When he got to the outside of the hospital there were his parents waiting for him, he wasn't surprised, he must have only been out for a short amount of time, not the hours or even days that was average, most of his friends probably had no clue of what had happened.

He stood there, across from his parents for a awkward second, looking at them. They were pretty, strong, intelligent and he was just a freak, some weird accident that should have never occurred.

"Hi" John said in a attempt to break the awkward silence that had spontaneously happened.

"I know how this must look son, but everything will turn out for the best, they might even find a way to fix this." His dad said he tried to act strong but he knew that it was just an act.

His mother had been in complete shock the whole time but she had come to her senses just as john had managed to say "where to".

She carefully responded with "wherever you want to go."

He looked at them but he didn't want to bear this , this wasn't what was supposed to happen, the odds of 2 screw ups on a surgery within 3 months is astronomically low, it broke status quo.

They stood there for a while, another silence had befallen them and john broke it again. "gona walk "

The parent's protests were clear and obvious, but he did not care. He started walking in the general direction of his mansion. He did not know what he was going to do and he did not know where he was going but he was going. He walked for hours losing himself in the massive metropolis.

**** (time passing) ****

Late at night when the moon had risen he was still walking, the party spires of new pretty time eliminated the dark night.

At one point in the night a car had approached him, it had taken him a couple seconds to recognize it but despite his sleep the counter balance of his memories of evading and running from him had made it clear. The wardens had thought he was a ugly, which by definition he was one, in all but a couple of hours he was a ugly.

The wardens approached him, there middle pretty beauty hit him like a wall and sent waves of respect and honor and dignity going through him. They took their time walking up to him, deliberately making it clear that they had the power, how typical.

"What are you doing out so late?" He knew what they were thinking but John did not care he did not care about anything.

"Walking, what does it look like"? John responded with the tone of rebel and undertones of I don't care.

"Its past curfew, you should be in bed." They looked at him expecting the typical I'm sorry I did not know response.

"Pretties have curfews? This is new when was this law pasted" they had a dumbfounded look on their face; they had clearly not expected any respond like that.

"You're not a pretty" they stated plainly

"wanna bet" John started to walk past the wardens, but they thought he was gona try to run for it , tons of uglies had tried but they never succeeded and they were always just brought up with my serious charges and worse consequences.

"We are warning you, stop" one of them stated, in the same tone as earlier.

"Fuck off" he responded in the same tone.

The wardens reacted, quickly drawing there tazers, nowadays wardens have been heavily armed, due to some law being passed. They shot john, the copper wires sprang out of the gun and into his skin, jamming all electrical impulses in his body.

They easily hauled him into their hover car and flew him back to base, expecting to have to call his parents and give him a serious talking to. They flew back to their warden station and sat John down in a chair inside their office.

"Do you know what you did?" one of them asked

"Stayed up late" he responded, acting like this wasn't a worldly concern.

"Put your thumb here" one of them asked, presenting a thumb pad, usually they would then have a identity on him and would call in his parents.

"Why the fuck not" he casually responded and complied with their command

"Language" one of the officers responded sharply.

The scanner quickly searched all records and quickly came up with his name.

"John Clark" one of the wardens asked in complete surprise.

"Ya, can I go now"

"Ya sir, sorry about that "he knew that when they said sorry they actually meant about the surgery but they were too polite to say.

He quickly got up and walked to a phone on the opposite wall, this had to be a first in history he thought, an uglie arrested then released almost instantly.

He pushed a small button and the wall and demanded "CAB" he walked outside into the night to wait.

****(time passed)****

He arrived at his new room about half an hour later and laid down on his bed, much to the relief of his aching muscles. He looked over at a table on the other side of the room, containing some stuff that they had taken from him at the beginning of the surgery which was standard procedure.

When he had the strength he got up and walked over, to see on the table a interface ring which he had never used and his ident card. He walked over and put on the ring and demanded "messages".

2 new messages from 1 wwas from Orin and 1 was from Edwin, a old friend of his, before he turned 16.

He first listened to the message from Orin.

"_Sup, gona make this short. We should chill sometime wanna see the new you, you promised you'd visit, come whenever you feel up to it .peaceski."_

He went to listen to the other message

"_He dude sorry about not being there at the release but I couldn't come at short notice. Anyway I got a party coming up tomorrow so show up, just a couple of friends so don't do anything fancy. seya then!"_

After the messaged were finished playing he took the ring off, unaccustomed to wearing it and fell onto the bed.

All that had crossed his mind was that he needed to rest.

*note* sorry it took so long but I wrote this at like 3 am and it was full of plot wholes and so on. And the earlier thing about Status quo wasn't the whole meaning of the title.


	5. Velocity

John woke up, around sometime later. He instinctively reached for his remote, which he usually used to turn on his PC. After realizing where he was and what was going on he reached interface ring.

He clumsily put it on, between the lack of sleep and general lack of skill with the ring it took longer than usual.

"Breakfast, lots of it" he lazily said into his ring.

"10 minute delivery" the ring responded.

John relaxed, and looked around the room. It was standard new pretty décor, standard bathroom standard wall screen, standard couch, standard table, and standard bed.

****10 minutes later****

The tray slowly hovered into the room, the front door automatically opening for it. John slowly sat up in the bed to look at what it contained which was toast, eggs Sunnyside up and a large plate full of "synthetic bacon".

"Table" John barked to the hovering tray, it slowly climbed to table height and turned off its lifters with a small thud.

"Feeds" John ordered at the wall screen, within seconds it was full of recent and important city news. John slowly got up, lazily walked over to the table and sat down , he began to dig into the food.

"In recent news the new party spires for Nian mansion is complete, these new spires are capable of holding a thousand people each, drastically improving the capacity of the mansion."

"so important john responded to the wall" they always seemed to fill the news with the least important information.

After finishing the meal he called Edwin, figuring he did not know about his surgery failing.

"Hey man how's the new life"

"Ok, I guess"

"So you are coming to the party?"

"O ya about that I really don't think that it's appropriate."

"Common man don't chicken out, I know it's your first party but don't chicken out"

"It's not-"

"Sorry but I got to go just be there, see ya later."

He hung up.

Next he went to return Orins call; he had nothing better to do considering he was still ugly. He called but no one picked, Orin usually picked up instantly.

"Time" john asked the room.

"11 hundred hours"

John realized that Orin would be in school now, studying stuff but more likely sleeping.

John realized that he had nothing to do. All of his computers where at his old dorms and all of his friends were either in school or pretty.

"Requisition"

"Order?" the room responded.

"1 heavy hauler class 3 hover board, blood and steel paint."

"Do you have required safety equipment" the room asked.

"No" since it was a class 3 hover board one spill without a heavy bungee jacket would kill or severely injure the rider.

"Is that all" the room asked.

"No, calibration toolkit, 6 inch titanium switch knife, and finally but not least a box of double whiskey."

"Is that all" the room repeated

"Yes, delivery time?"

"2 hours"

John sat on the couch and looked at the wall screen, nothing good was on.

"Message incoming from Orin"

"Display"

_Common man I was in the middle of class, almost got busted, but I'll be done at 2 so seya then or something._

John finished reading the message, and his earlier suspicion got confirmed, he had nothing to do.

****in between****

The feeds were the same as always, never saying anything negative and only spinning information to make the city look good and noble. They always mentioned the recent prettiest but they never mentioned when the operation screwed up. People knew that the surgery could go wrong, but they did not want to see it, they did not want to doubt there perfect city. The saying that describes the city best is: Even if paradise is a facade it's still paradise.

****2 hours later****

"Your requisition is waiting in the lobby"

"Thanks" John started to walk towards the door, turning of the wall screen on his way. The walk wasn't far, considering there were elevators, he arrived at the lobby quickly.

"Here for a req" john said to the receptionist

"Over there" she responded, pointing to a floating hover board, its cargo compartment obviously weighing down the board. John walked over to the board, it rose to his chest level, waiting for commands to be entered into the small controls and displays on the side of the board.

He quickly set ownership to himself and told the board to follow him; with it in tow he began to walk the short distance back to his room.

When John entered the room he grabbed the board and put it on the table. He reached into the cargo compartment which, since it was a cargo hauler was about 3 times the size of the average boards, big enough to hold the whiskey, the knife ,"safety equipment",and the calibration kit.

He carefully removed the tool kit, bungee jacket,knife and whiskey from the board, and with the tool started to remove the upper panel of the board, a procedure he had done countless times. He quickly, with practiced hands removed the minders and speed inhibitors on the board. With equal speed he reassembled the board and checked to see that it worked, it did. No surprise.

Before, when he was younger he was not allowed to order fast hover boards, even though they were all caped at the same speed, the cities judged the boards at their top speed, this boards top speed was 356 MPH, even though it was usually capped at 15, so in theory it was completely safe to ride it normally, but the city used cap speed for safety requirements.

He grabbed the board and had it sit outside the window, he carefully loaded the whiskey onto the board, leaving it hovering in mid air, he slowly stepped on it to here "no sensors detected, no safety equipment detected"

"Override "john replied annoyed.

When john stepped out of his window and onto the board, it did not give, which was incredibly odd, most boards dipped a couple of inches when a rider stepped on, not to mention the extra weight the board was hauling around.

John studied his surroundings, the ugly dorms were across the river, ahead of him, and more of new pretty town was behind him and spread out along the bank of the river. After a second of decision he shot across the river towards the ugly dorms at incredible speeds, the raw power of the board sent shock waves rippling across the water.

Usually this would have been a rather long trip, crossing the river but with his improved board it only took a couple of seconds, when he reached the other side he quickly tried to slow down. John tried the usually large turn, to dispel momentum and velocity.

This spin, sent john flying off the hover board, his right shoulder smashed into the trunk of an old willow, dislocating it and sending blood flying everywhere. Luckily this stopped him, but did not stop his board from crashing into the willow tree, removing inches of bark and wood from the ancient tree. With some remnants of his strength John managed to sit up, leaning against the tree. The pain was almost unbearable, black slowly tried to envelop his vision but he fought it , he wasn't gona give up to some tree.

John through his one left arm up, reaching for the board. He managed to crab onto it and pull it down, he slung open the cargo compartment of his board and took a bottle of whiskey out of it.

He slowly, but with much effort opens the bottle and took a long gulp. He sat there for a while, letting the potent alcohol fight the pain. But he knew what he had to do.

An average pretty right now would call a warden and probably start crying, but he wasn't average, for that matter he wasn't even pretty. With all the force he could muster he popped his shoulder back into its normal location. Another wave of blackness attempted to overtake him but he resisted again.

He sat there for a while, slowly standing up and finishing the bottle.

"Common you little fucker" he said to the board, amazingly it came over to him and he slowly stepped onto it, testing it.

"Slow and easy this time k?" he whispered to the board, as it slowly ascended to the top of the tree. He slowly road to his old dorm ,it was a long ride , considering his speed and his injuries he did make remarkable speed.

He pulled up to his old dorm and slowly opened the window, it slided open with no resistance. From there he climbed into the room and walked over to the black velvet couch and collapsed onto it.

**** Short amount of time****

"Hey john what's up" Orin said, dropping his bag onto the floor, he proceeded to open a soda but stopped mid way.

"Wait a sec should you be pretty? Or still in surgery" Orin asked, a puzzled expression taking over his face.

"Apparently I can't be made pretty. Shocker." John responded, turning on the wall screen and taking a shot from the bottle that he had earlier retrieved from his board.

There was a silence for a couple of second, Orin was at a loss of words and John had nothing to say, the seconds seemed to be a eternity.

"So what you doing now" Orin asked, slowly walking towards the couch.

"I don't know, I should be going to parties and shit like that but it would be….. Interesting" John responded.

Orin finally reached john and was standing over him, the damage that the tree had caused was obvious.

"Looks like you've been through hell and back again" Orin said, taking a seat next to john.

"O ya kind of hit a tree at high speeds" john said pointing to his aftermarket hover board hovering outside .

"Nice gear, we could never get anything like that back in the day." Orin said, getting up again to inspect the floating technological wonder.

He curiously opened the cargo compartment to remove a bottle of the alcoholic beverage and quickly exclaimed "Nice!"

****time going by****

The two of them got completely smashed.

**** Some time later****

_Ding, Ding, Ding. _The door repeated rapidly.

"Coming" Orin yelled as he tried to stand up but he fell back onto the couch with a sickening _thud._

"ize got itsss it" john yelled, standing up and staggering to the door. He slung it open, to see Yura standing in the door with a shocked look on her face.

"Shouldn't you be-"she began to ask but john cut her off

"nozeeeee some problemzzzzzzz" he said, his words become so slurred that it was barely recognizable.

"Well I came here to drop of Orins paper" she said, handing john a thin computer, he barely held onto it.

"Well ok seeya" he said slamming the door in her face, he through the tablet onto a table and collapsed back onto the couch.

"Dude I heardzz some awesome music the other day" John said to the half knocked out Orin.

"Play all music from FF franchise" john ordered the room.

The music slowly trickled in but eventually the harmony's and sweet melodies overwhelmed them.

"Increased volume by 200 %" Orin ordered from his face-into-cushion position on the couch.

The volume increased, to far over the limit that the city proscribes, but due to hacks that they had done in the past, the room accepted the command and raised the volume.

****time passing****

_Ding, Ding, Ding. _The door repeated rapidly.

"Common go the fuck away!" one of them yelled, both too drunk to know who.

_Ding, Ding ,Ding. _The door repeated rapidly.

"Come in"

A warden entered, his florescent green suit blinding both of them.

"Pause music" the warden demanded.

" you two are coming with me to the station house, you've violated enough rules to fill a book."

John stood up and walked up to the warden and stared into his eyes, the warden tried to guide john out of the door but john quickly punched him in the jaw, snapping a number of his knuckles, reinforced plastic vs bone was not a fair fight.

The warden quickly fell to the floor. A full thud rang out.

"Common we should roll" John called over to the couch; Orin quickly stood up and started to walk towards the board.

They both quickly walked over to the board and climbed onto it. Tandem riding with a insanely overpowered board was not the best idea, especially when the riders where both completely smashed and did not have any equipment.

They road along the river, not long later a couple of hover cars had started to chase them, due to the boards speed they were about equal in speed but the hover board couldn't not do any sharp turns due to the fact of momentum.

"ize thatz wahtz I think it is" Orin asked looking ahead at the shining metal blobs in the distance .

"How the fuck should I know, probably." As they quickly sped forward it became clear, hover cars arranged in a blockade.

"From where I see it we got a couple of choices, run the blockade, change direction or give up" john said.

"Giving up is kinda looking good, we will be completely fucked when we get caught."

"Ya but where is the fun in that" john asked

"Good point, change direction I guess then" The hover board began to gradually slow down, the high gs put on the riders were like being buried alive.

The board eventually changed direction but then quickly resumed its earlier speed, accelerating quickly to the far off hills.

"Think well actually make it" Orin was referring to the old bunkers built by the rusty's for ancient wars, they blocked all signals.

"Probably not"

John quickly weaved through trees and buildings, trying to lose the hover cars, and they did one by one drop of and slow down, looking for the fugitives.

"Now" John yelled, they both saw the fast approaching hill and they both jumped at the signal.

They landed, with minor injuries, considering the speed they were going and the lack of gear.

"You ok" John asked, looking at his friends path through multiple bushes and plants, all crushed.

"More or less" Orin responded, emerging from the bush completely covered in a crimson shade.

"So what now" Orin asked looking at john.

"I got a party to be at in like hour." John said looking at his fractured watch.

"Guess we should find the board" Orin responded, sweeping his vision over the area.

They found the board rather quickly, considering how fast it was going and the randomness of their jump. They slowly rid back into town, John dropped Orin off at his dorm and began to ride back to the party. It was not until he got half way they're that he realized he was completely covered in cuts and bruises and was extremely disheveled. But he figured, Ugly is ugly and pretty is pretty there would be no real difference.

**** Time passing****

John slowly floated up to the top story of the party. He began to search for his old friend Edwin. He finally found him, surrounded by a group of friends. He jumped off the board and processes to walk to him, stares from pretties. It was surprising that someone hadn't called the wardens yet, a ugly crashing a party did not go unnoticed but strangely no one showed up. He slowly approached Edwin, a path clearing for him; people treated him like a infected person, always making sure they were a couple feet away, not to catch his ugliness.

When he approached Edwin he nor any of his friends seemed to notice him , he walked in , gently nudging two pretties to make a space for him to stand, putting his arm around one of them he said, with a tone that said _I totally told you so why dint you listen. _

"So what's up" John said, a silence filled the never ending white noise of the party.

The pretties' which john had is arm on removed it and slowly moved away, the other pretties slowly followed suit.

" ya this is why I said I shouldn't come so I'm gona go now" john said as he turned and started to walk away.

"Wait" Edwin managed to mumble out.

John stopped walking out and turned his head, looking Edwin straight in the eye, causing him to flinch, like a ghost walked over his grave.

"You don't have to leave" Edwin managed to say.

"ya, I do." John responded

John started walking again.

"Sorry" john heard from behind him, but he kept going, he got on the overboard and road back to his new room, what a dull night that had been.

****time passing****

It did not take long for him to get back to the room, when he got there he headed for the bed and turned on the wall screen.

"In recent news wardens were called to stop a runaway hover board, its defective controls caused it to run out of control –"

"How typical" john said to himself, or to the room or to the city.

He waited but sleep did not come, he sat there, waiting for the night to overcome him but it did not, after laying there for a while he knew what he had to do, settle a long dispute. He grabbed the knife that had been lying on the table and proceeded to the hover board, and quickly flew over to the ugly side of town. Flying at incredible speeds in the night, weaving through water skimmers and drunken pretties. He arrived at his destination, Yuras room.

He walked over to the white board and took out the knife and started to etch.

_You say were different you say we are better but we are just the same, you always say that the rusties are evil and that they almost destroyed the world but the only reason that has happened to us is because you and your government cronies control everything from birthrates to death rates. You know what that takes away? Our liberties and freedoms are a complete joke. You think we're better? Fuck you._

John stood back to admire his work, it got the message across. He walked over to his waiting hover board and flew away.

He flew away, to face the dark. Alone.

For those of you who are wondering why they dint seem to go after him after they escaped its because there sympathetic to john and they are figuring Orin just got caught up in it and they never punish people anyway.


	6. Devoured

"So what's this crazy plan?" Orin asked as he drummed his fingers on the side of the couch.

"We disable the lifters on the part spire where the pretty committee will be hosting there meeting, since at the time the spire will be over the water they will hopefully drown, or at least get soaked."

"Just gona point this out but this stunt will get noticed, what we did earlier they dint care about, this, this is big."

"That's kind of the point." John responded

"How we even gona turn of the lifters, any interface is monitored?" Orin asked, looking out the window at the soon to be soaked party spire.

John pulled out an old rusty looking computer, it was rather small but it looked heavy and powerful.

"And if that doesn't work which I'm sure is unlikely."

"Acid to burn thought he wires and the cables." John responded as he took out a small vial.

"Now another stupid question, how we gona not get noticed and where do we hack into and apply the acid?"

"Still working on that but we do have a couple of days."

"Mm good point"

"So I'm gona go check out the spire tonight, you wanna come?" John asked.

"Ya sure, when we going?"

"Meet me at the spire at 3, bring a board."

"K"

John slowly gathered the equipment he had brought and left the dorm, they had a lot of planning to do if they really intended to pull off a stunt like that.

**** 3 am****

John stood, hovering near the bottom of the spire. Out of the eye he thought he saw something, a red light flying in is general direction and he smiled, always on time.

John slowly hovered away from the shadow of the spire and waved an arm at the flying light, it slowly approached him and he saw a rush then a mask removed and Orin's head appeared.

"Time to go?" Orin asked as he looked at the imposing spire.

"Ya" John responded as he led Orin to a small hatch built into the spire.

"This leads to the maintenance part of the spire." John said as he open it and crawled into it, leaving a rider less board hovering in midair.

"Common!" John whispered to Orin as he waved him over, he too slowly crawled into the hatch. They proceeded to go deeper into the facility. They finally reached a hallway and crawled out; they finally stood up and looked around. The hallway was well lit and had white walls, it was Spartan compared to the upper part of the spire, but there were a decent amount of pipes and wiring running around.

They started to walk to the center of the spire, figuring that was where the mainframe would be along with the magnetisms. They finally came across a thick door, a large square of glass covered the top part and they both peered into the room on the other side.

"Cameras and heat sensors."John whispered and he pointed to the small surveillance devices.

"Keypads on all the systems including this door." Orin responded pointing at the numerous small inputs devices.

They both stepped back from the door.

"We need the cracker."Orin said as they both rested.

"And some stealth gear." John added, there was only one place where they could get what they needed, the ranger outpost at the edge of the city.

They slowly walked back to the maintenance hatch and crawled back onto there waiting hover boards.

"Tomorrow same time bunkers." John whispered at Orin, who nodded and then whispered back.

"Ya see ya then." They both then left, flying in opposite directions.

**** 24 hours later****

John slowly flew into the rusty ruins, flying towards the hollowed out hills at slow speeds, watching out for the crumbling buildings and long dead skeletons. He slowly flew into the bunker, the 1 where Orin and john were going to meet. He dismounted his board and picked it up, he started to walk in.

After walking 30 about 20 yards he started to hear a whistling, as he went farther into the complex it grew louder.

"Hey" he called out.

"Finally" he heard in response.

John walked into a room to see Orin sitting, leaning up against a wall.

"Ready" John asked.

"Ya" Orin responded as he stood up.

"Now just putting it on the floor, did we really have to hide the cracker here, I doubt anyone would have found it if we placed it closer to the city."

"Very true" John responded as he walked over to the knapsack where they had hidden the cracker, a device that they themselves had built, it had the ability to crack any code brake into any keypad. This technology was highly illegal in the city so, they had to hide it when they were not using it.

He grabbed the knapsack and they started to walk out.

"So how are we gona brake into the ranger base?" Orin asked.

"Simple, the supply building is off the main base and only has a keypad on it and there are practically no rangers at the base anyway so I doubt they have guards or anything there."

"Yes simple, to simple."

When they got to the exit they quickly got on their hover boards and flew to the outpost, dodging the warden cars and avoiding partying pretties.

**** About 10 minutes later****

"It's over there" John whispered as he pointed to a building off of the main compound. They slowly flew up to the building.

They stashed there boards in the forest surrounding the compound, and quietly proceeded to the building.

John slowly dropped his bad as Orin took out the cracker and put it next to the keypad, right as he placed it began to try combinations, any combination.

"This is gona take a while" Orin responded as he read the readout from the cracker.

"How long is _a while _"John responded as he peered at the device?

"O fun" John said as he read the readout, an hour to break the code.

"O shit" Orin whispered as they heard footsteps, 2 rangers were coming.

"Don't just stand there grab it!" John whispered back.

"It's stuck" Orin responded as he tried to remove the cracker.

"What do you mean it's stuck?" john replied

"I mean it's stuck!" Orin practically yelled back

John quickly shoved Orin to the other side of the building and pressed the _LIGHTS OFF_ _button on the cracker_. Then he followed Orin to the other side of the building.

"I Thought we already reclaimed Pit" they both heard from one of the incoming rangers.

"We did, it regrew. Shocker. I doubt we will be able to get it back though; it's pretty well dug in." The other ranger responded.

They slowly approached the building, and one of the rangers entered a code into the building and they both entered.

They soon emerged later, both carrying standard ranger gear and the proceeded to walk back into the main complex, the door shutting behind them. John and Orin slowly emerged from the side of the building and walked up to the door. Orin slowly inspected the device.

"It got the code" Orin slyly said as he entered the code into the panel on the door and watched it slide open.

"That's a lot of stuff" john shockingly announced. The room was full of anything you could possibly need, sneak suits, rebreathers, welding torches, there was so much gear that the room was overflowing with it.

Orin, managed to pry off the cracker and he stuff it back into his knapsack. John walked into the room and started to walk around a take a mental inventory of the gear.

"So you have any idea of what we need?" Orin asked, as he walked in and the door closed behind him.

John slowly pulled a list out of his knapsack and began to read:

"Sneak suits or an insulated suits_"

"Got them"

"Metal cuter"

"Me to"

"Rebreathers"

"Ditto"

"Night vision"

"I haven't seen any, but there is a lot of stuff"

"Finally but not least any type of jamming device"

"Why would they have those here?"

"We can always hope"

"Ya"

"And any stuff that you can find, to through them off the trail."

"K"

They proceeded to find gear and stuff it in the bags; it was surprising the amount of gear that the rangers kept considering their job mostly consisted of lighting fires.

After a short amount of time they both met up at the entrance.

John burst into a couching fit, blood coming up "sorry, what you got" John asked looking at Orin's over flowing knapsack

"Cutting tools, bunch of rebreathers and sneak suits, wire cutters, lock breaker, the good type. You ok?"

"You got anything good "Orin asked looking at the blood that covered Johns sleeve.

"Generator, ditto on the other stuff and finally but not least a couple of broad band transmitters."

He walked up to the top of the door and stuck a transmitter and a cracker. He entered a series of commands into them.

"If the code changes well know." He responded to Orin's quizzical expression.

"And why the generator?" Orin asked looking at the large device sticking out of the knapsack.

"In due time my friend." John responded as he opened the door and proceeded to walk out. Orin slowly followed him, closing the door behind him. They walked over to where they had stashed the hover boards.

John put his knap sack in the cargo compartment of his board and motioned for Orin to give him his, he stashed that to the walked onto the board.

"Back to where we started."

Orin nodded, walked onto his board and shot away from the compound towards the bunkers. John slowly followed him, not due to the weight on the board; he spent time admiring the night, the deadly dark night.

They arrived at the bunkers, taking the knapsacks out of the hover board they proceeded inside to stash there new found goods. When they got to their usual spot john put down his bag and took out the generator.

"Now do I found out what that was for?" Orin asked as he set down his bag.

"Soon" John responded, he started to walk, into another room. Orin slowly walked after him.

They eventually came up to a room with a sign, labeling it _Power room._

"I see." Orin said as he realized what the point of the generator was.

"But will it even work?" he asked after considering what needed to be done.

"Possibly." John responded as he opened the door and walked in , shining his flash light on the room, it revealed a bunch of old oil burning generators, luckily they has not been exposed to the bug. John slowly walked up to an open spot, alligator clips were hanging in midair were a generator was supposed to be.

John grabbed the generator and put it on the table; he slowly turned on the generator, filling the room with a soft humming.

"It's running fine, now we have to see if the rusty power system is still operational." He said to the curious Orin.

"Oo cool" Orin said as he walked around the room, inspecting the ancient equipment.

John slowly hooked up the clips to the generators and threw a rusty switch with a click. Suddenly the lights of the complex came on, illuminating the room.

"It worked!" Orin exclaimed looking outside into the light hallway.

"Hey go try closing the front door and bringing our boards in, it would be bad if someone saw the light or stumbled in".

John walked over to a display to see, to read the power usage logs and determine how long the generator could keep the facility running. Orin had started to walk away and when he got far enogh away that John could barely hear him he heard.

"Hey did you hear anything?"

"No, you must be crazy." John responded as he heard Orin's footsteps get softer and softer till he could finally not hear them.

"Interesting" John muttered as he went over the readout, the generator without any more Naquada could run for several years before needing to be refilled. The generator was also generating a lot more power then was needed by the base.

"Our coffin has been sealed" John heard, coming over the bases built in communications device. John looked for a device to respond and found one in short time, a small box with the words _speak _and _mute_ written on it, faded over the hundreds of years that had occurred since the base had been built.

"O, fun, seen anything interesting on a way hear?" John responded.

"Mhm I saw a couple of signs, I think 1 was armory and a hangar or something like that."

"Mm cool, meet you at the usually place, 5 minutes?" John asked, continuing to look over the read out.

"Ya sure" Orin responded.

John slowly started to walk over to the "usual" place, the base was completely different now that the hallways were all lit, previously hidden signs and corridors now became clear. But the base was surprisingly clean, considering what had happened, it seemed like he could just hear military commanders and long dead leaders running about the ancient base.

John finally entered the room where Orin and he had stashed so many items and spent so much time, but it was completely different. The room had previously seemed like just a room with some tables and chairs, with glass on the walls but in light it was completely different, the glass turned out to be displays and the tables were filled with work stations, all coming to life with the new found energy source.

He spotted Orin sitting at a table, trying to navigate the ancient computer.

"O cool seems like it's got some sort of cloaking or stealth device, and something referred to as a 302 bay." John slowly approached Orin and looked over his shoulder at the display.

"Can you activate them, the power surges are bound to cause some raised eyebrows."

"Possibly" Orin responded as he sorted through menus and displays.

"Done" Orin said, relief plain on his face, the base shuttered as the systems activated.

John slowly collapsed into a chair, staring at the ancient tiles that covered the ceiling. The black slowly enveloped his vision; the toll of what they had done today slowly took its toll on his body.

****couple of hours later****

John slowly woke up, stretching; sleeping in a chair was never idea especially when it was designed by the rusty's. He turned around to face the console where Orin had been working to see a small note, obviously left recently.

_Hey went back to the dorm but did not want to wake you, I turned off some non essential systems, the power required to run the stealth systems gave us only days for the generator. _

_Ps the part is 8 to dawn , but it's not until 2 days so we got some extra time , I'll be done with this shit at 3 so we can chill then _

_PEACE_

_Orin _

Slowly a coughing fit came over john, but he slowly recovered and sat up. He slowly started to walk to the entrance of the bunker, it was a short walk considering now they had light now and didn't have to worry about falling on some ancient debris. He finally got to his hover board and opened the bunker door, the outside mourning light blinding him momentarily. He slowly mounted the board and road back into the city, cruising through the trees and weaving through the buildings.

He finally reached his room and entered collapsed onto his bed.

"Wall screen on" he ordered to the room, the feeds came on. Displaying the same boring news.

"Ping to Edwin" John ordered the room.

"Hey" the ring responded, Edwin's voice emanating from the ring.

"What ya doing?" John asked, gazing at the feeds.

"Just woke up." He sleepily responded.

"Sorry did me-"Edwin quickly cut him off.

"Nope. Wanna come over?" Edwin asked.

"Ya sure, be over in 5."

"Bring food." Edwin managed to get out before john had hung up the call. John got up, realizing he did not know what time it was he checked the time, 1 pm. It wasn't surprising that Edwin had slept in that late, for a pretty he was considered an early riser.

John slowly proceeded to the first floor of his mansion, he picked up a tray full of food on the way there, he rid quickly to Edwin's mansion, the tray hovering along at a surprising speed. He eventually arrived at Edwin's window, easily opening it and jumping off his board into the room, the tray following him into the room.

Edwin surprised, turned around to see John in the window and muttered "nice entrance."

"O ya thanks" John responded as he pushed the hovering tray over to Edwin. It wobbled as it slid through the air.

"Want any?" Edwin offered as he began to devour the food.

"I'm good." John responded.

****30 minutes later****

"Hey I think I got something to cheer you up, follow me." Edwin said, exited to have an idea that could cheer up his depressed old friend.

Edwin slowly led John to the roof of the mansion.

"Nice view." John plainly said as he took in his surroundings, a bungee jacket rack, some air filters, and various pieces of metal.

Edwin removed a bungee jacket from the rack and threw it to john.

"I've done a lot more fun fast and exiting things than this."

"That's what they all say, I'm sure you have." Edwin responded, clearly thinking that john was just trying to worm his way out of the jump.

Edwin took out a bungee jacket for himself and put it on, John slowly followed suit, putting on the jacket as its automated straps entangled him.

John slowly approached the edge of the roof and stood there, over the edge. It looked like a 40-60 foot drop, not that high considering what he had done in recent times. He heard footsteps, slowly increasing in speed coming towards him, faster and faster.

"Holy mother fucker" john managed to hey out as he was thrown off the edge of the roof, the ground was steadily approaching. Then suddenly he got pulled back up, the straps of the jacket tightening around him , Edwin finally let go of him, kick off flying away from him into the.

He bounced a couple of more times but slowly his momentum was dispelled and he softly landed on the ground.

"When I said I've been faster and at greater heights I wasn't kidding!" John yelled to Edwin, slowly standing up and removing the jacket. He started to walk towards Edwin who responded:

"Ya sure you have."

John activated his interface ring, calling his hover board over to him; it shot through the air and arrived quickly.

"This is what I've been talking about!" John said as he stepped onto the waiting board. He motioned for Edwin to get on who after a couple of seconds of doubt he did.

"Ready?" john asked, looking Edwin straight in the eyes.

"Ya, giddy up." Edwin responded, expecting a slow gradual buildup of speed.

Instead of that the board shot away at 350 MPH, John weaved through the building, and eventually came back to where they had started. Edwin fell of the board and threw up on the ground, the remnents of the lunch splattered on the grass.

"Told ya so, Motion sickness much?" John slyly responded, sitting on the board.

****next day****

John slowly weaved through the forest, careful not to be detected by warden, there were tons of them out tonight due to the party with the pretty committee, and if anything went wrong the city would be on the hook.

He finally arrived at the bunker. He pushed the bottom on the door and it slowly slid open, he walked through it and closed it. He proceeded to walk to the command center.

Not noticing Orin he went to where they had stashed the stolen gear, he slowly opened the knapsacks and started to remove their contents, spreading the gear out on to one of the many tables.

The gear consisted of numerous sneak suits, which they figured would come in handy if they every had recruits, a pair of rebreathers, if they are unable to get out of the tower before it hits the water, some sensor jammers, acid, and a plethora of junk that they had stolen, they could come in handy and to through the rangers of their trail.

A few minutes later Orin strolled in, he took a quick glance at the gear and asked "ready?"

"I guess we can get started now." John responded as he through a sneak suit at Orin, who clumsily caught it. Orin clumsily caught the pile of black scales.

"Think these will actually work?" Orin asked as he examined the armor.

"Only one way." John responded as he took off his sneakers and slid into the sneak suit. When it was on he started to flex his fingers, the scales adjusted with them, turning and twisting. Orin quickly followed suit.

John slipped a rebreather and a metal cutter into a pocket on his suit and tossed one to Orin, he also handed Orin the acid, taking with himself the small computer he would use to hack the spires mainframe and the electromagnetic jammer.

"Ready?" John asked

"Ya" Orin responded and they started to walk to the exit of the bunker.

When they got outside they called their boards, they started to fly to the soon to be sunk party spire.

****later****

Orin approached the hatch of the spire and slowly opened it, he then crawled inside casually, and like it was something they did every day. John followed him; they approached the door that leads to the mainframe.

John slowly took out the metal cutter and cut the lock off the door; he slowly removed the glowing metal and opened the door.

John walked in with Orin close behind.

"Watch out- "John barely managed to get out as a need went through the scales of the sneak suit and penetrated his neck.

"Holy mother fucker-"John responded as immense pain surged through his body.

"What the?" john asked as he look at the aggressor.

It was Yura.

"Why are you, what are you." Orin began to stutter as he surprisingly looked up at Yura.

John attempted to say something but a hand clamped over his mouth.

"Don't say anything; we don't want another trail following us like on the last stunt you guys pulled." Yura said looking at the confused duo.

John again started to say something but the hand clamped down harder, so instead Orin asked for him.

"What are you doing here and what do you mean by previous stunt?" Orin asked.

"I'm guessing the same thing you two are here to do, to send this tower into the river, and by previous stunt I mean braking into the armory, I barely managed to keep you two arrogant punks from being caught." She responded, spitting out the last words.

"I wasn't aware they were close." Orin responded.

"Ya. John's condition almost got you two caught." She finally let go of john's mouth, he finally took a long needed breath. They both knew what she meant by condition, john had a chronic lung disease which made the tissue deteriorate, which made a trail of Johns DNA, due to this he had to have a lung refit every couple of years.

"What I just gave you, should in theory stabilize you, so hopefully we don't get caught." She continued.

"Now if I may how do you two intend to take this hunk of metal down?" she asked.

John, taking a much needed breath and replied "turn of the lifters and destroy the power supply."

"Crude but effective." she simply replied

"And your plan?" Orin asked looking at his history teacher, in the middle of the mainframe of a floating building.

"Slowly reduce the power of the lifters and have a hologram of the building still be transmitted, no one should notice till it is too late."

"Did I mention we brought jammers and something to break those codes?" John announced as he pointed to the numerous transmitters and keypads scattered throughout the complex.

"What ever, get started on your plan, we'll call it plan B and plan C in case mine goes wrong."

"Since when did we start taking orders from you?" Orin asked, looking Yura straight in the eyes.

"Since I saved both of you from getting caught by the specials." She stated plainly.

"Whatever "Orin replied and they started to get to work.

****later****

"Done" Orin responded, holding up a remote that would trigger the acid.

"Same." John added

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck this isn't working. John hit it!" Yura yelled as she walked away from the work station.

"COMON!" John yelled as he furiously slammed on the enter key of his laptop

"Orin." Yura yelled.

After a second of delay Orin yelled back "the wires are reinforced it's useless!"

Both john and Yura approached John's position looking at the thick wires.

John slowly took out his knife and began to saw threw the cables.

"Lifters 1-4 offline" a computerized voice came over the com system.

"Lifters 5 and 6 offline, emergency lifters activating." The voice continued "2 minutes until critical failure."

"John how thoes jammers going?" Yura asked.

"They've been running for the last 5 minutes."

"I think we should be going now!" Orin yelled as the building started to slow descended, he quickly pulled up the hood of his sneak suit.

"Ya" john responded as he started to go for the door, he opened it but on the other side there was a wall of metal bars blocking the path.

"Drop locks system." John replied to Yura's confused face, she still looked confused but john quickly went around her to the other door, standing at the other side of the circular room, even though there boards wouldn't be waiting on the other side but it's still better then drowning.

"Surprise." John announced as that door also had bars behind it, ceiling them in.

"Ideas?" Yura asked, looking around at the descending room.

"We could cut through them." Orin suggested, pulling out the cutting tool they had used on the lock.

"Would take too long, those are reinforced titanium." John responded.

"Well its gona get very wet very fast!" John yelled after a second of silence, water slowly started to fill the floor.

"The ceiling" Yura exclaimed, john and Orin both looked at her puzzled.

"It's made of soft material so when drunken pretties get knocked out they don't get a concussion, we should be able to easily cut to through that." She explained.

"Small detail none of us are 12 feet tall, last time I checked!" Orin responded looking at the ceiling.

"Then we wait." She said calmly, watching the water slowly trickle into the room.

"THAT IS A TERRIBLE PLAN! POSSIBLY DO TO THE FACT THAT THERE IS OVER 12 MEGAWATS RUNNING THROUGH THOUGHS CABLES WE CUT!" John exclaimed pointing at the wires.

"Good point." She calmly stated.

"Are you ever not calm?" Orin asked, looking around the room for another way to escape.

After a couple of seconds John realized something " This system is drop-lock , which means there is no power running thru the system, so the wires would have to be dead, the plan would work fine," the two of them looked at him ,suspicious but they did see his logic.

"What about the lights?" Orin asked pointing to the still on spheres.

"They're running on backup batteries, there not connected to the main systems." Yura explained.

The water came in, faster now quickly overwhelming the trio. As the water grew they began to tread water. Eventually the water filed up high enough to allow them to start cutting the ceiling with the tools; in a matter of seconds a circular piece of the ceiling fell into the water sizzling as its hot edges came in contact with the freezing water.

John and Orin quickly climbed up onto the next level Yura following them.

The next level was the same as the previous, bars surrounding the room but luckily the next ceiling as only 8 feet tall so they began cutting as soon as they stood up.

"So what did I get on my last test?" Orin asked, looking as Yura as the sparks flew.

"Is this really the time?" john interrupted before Yura replied.

Simultaneously they both replied "yes!"

"You got a 70." She stated as the ceiling dropped out john gave Orin a boost and he jumped up, helping the other up she continued while they were on the next level. "I dint really think that you studied for it, your answered were kind of generic."

"Generic?" Orin asked, looking strangely at her.

"One more level!" John interrupted.

They again began to cut the ceiling, for the final time. This time when the floor fell they found an unusual site. An afraid pretty was looking at them, her world just collapsed and she was surrounded by 2 sneak suited figures and a middle pretty, an odd combo.

The young pretty started to scream but Orin quickly silenced the young pretty with a kick in the face.

"No, no, no." Yura started, "you have to through them down the well." She, with johns helped threw the unconscious body into the water; it fell down a flight of level before it impacted the approaching water.

"Isn't that murder or something?" Orin asked looking at the drowning body.

"Meh" John responded and walked away, they quickly ran towards the outside door, but due to the lack of power and the pressure difference it could not be opened.

"O shit" Orin responded, looking at the ceiling, it was 30 feet high and reinforced.

"We gota cut through the door!" Yura exclaimed looking at the door.

They quickly started but it was obvious that they wouldn't finish until the water was at least near the ceiling, in which time they could all very likely drown.

When the water reached their height level Orin and john quickly took out the rebreather and kept working, they weren't even a fourth of the way done and the water was cooling the cutting head, making the work slow down.

Yura approached the emergency mask and took one out.

They kept cutting, until john quickly poked Orin, signaling that his metal cutter had run out of energy, effectively useless. John turned around to see dead bodies, tons of them floating in the water. The morons dint know how the swim which was not surprising, even if the pretties could most of them wouldn't be strong enough to tread for very long.

After another minute of cutting through the door Orin's metal cutter ran out of energy ran out, they then tried to open the door but unfortunately did not budge.

Orin signaled for them to reach the top of the room, where there was still a medium sized air pocket left.

The finally reached the top and john spit out his rebreather and yelled above the rushing water "what now?"

"I don't know?" Orin responded.

"The batteries!"John exclaimed point towards the floor.

"Assuming that the batteries is still operation, assuming we can charge the cutter with, and finally but not least assuming that the rebreathers wont run out. Yura pointed out

"Any other option?" Orin asked.

"No!" John responded as he quickly put on his rebreather, he then put his feet against the ceiling and pushed off, from there he swam down, he quickly went through the levels finally approaching the bottom level.

With his knife he carefully removed one of the tiles off the ceiling and removed the casing around a light to reveal a battery hooked up to a florescent light.

He removed the leads from the battery and took removed it from its casing. He started to swim back up, the battery weighing him down made it take a lot longer to reach the top then it did for him to reach the bottom. When he finally reached half way his rebreather gave out, he quickly spat it out and with a renewed vigor swam towards the top.

He finally reached the small air pocket where Orin and Yura were waiting; he took a gasp of breath, the air surging into his lungs, relieving the burning.

"Here!" he gasped handing the battery to Yura.

She quickly grabbed the cutter out of Orin's hand and with a gasp of relief she plugged it in, a small ring came from the cutter.

John retried his cutter from one of the many pockets on his sneak suit and handed it to Yura who plugged it in next to the other. They treaded there for a couple of seconds until Yura announced good enough and removed the cutters, she was about to hand 1 to John but over his coughing he responded.

"I'm good; you two can get it done."

They both quickly dived down to the door, from his position John could see the door becoming red, they had to restart from nothing since the door had cooled since the original cutting had become.

Finally there had become so much bodies and debris in the water that he could no longer see the door. After waiting till the water filled up the air pocket he started to dive for the door, it took an incredible amount of time, dodging through the bodies and junk. Eventually, by the time he had reached the door which was gone and an open hole was all that remained he began seeing spots at the edge of his vision. He began to swim towards to surface, with the last dregs of energy he pushed towards the surface, his need of oxygen increasing. Finally when he was nearing the surface his energy faded and he did lost his will to live, he slowly gave up, until something grabbed the sneak suit by the back of the neck and hauled him up onto a small piece of land.

"This isn't Pearl Harbor but it's still a bad place to be." John could not recognize his rescuer, his mind was foggy and he could not think clearly, normal simple ideas became complex. He started coughing up water, he started to breath in the salty river air as a wave of acceleration hit him, he did not resist as a foot was planted on his back, keeping him from falling off the unknown surface.

Eventually he stopped moving and was kicked off the surface by the same boot that had kept him from falling off earlier, he fell about a foot onto a solid surface, and he slowly rolled over to see his unknown rescuer.

"Who the hell?" He began to ask.

"A friend." His rescuer responded as the unknown person quickly flew away. The black silhouette of the unknown rescuer slowly fading.

He heard someone approaching, footsteps.

"Orin?" John asked looking up at his old friend.

"Ya, I was going to get you but someone else got to you first, that person probably saved you." He responded, anticipating the question he friend would no doubt ask.

"Yura?" john croaked, sitting up against a nearby tree.

"I don't know, but before she disappeared she told me this never happened, and not to mention it ever again." Orin replied sitting down on his nearby hover board.

John nodded, and looked up at the hover cars flying around, there were tons, ambulances and warden cars flying everywhere but the odd part was they were not flying to the sinking tower; they were flying in the opposite direction.

"Also if the thought had crossed your mind that Yura was your rescuer I can safely say no." Orin said looking up at the hover cars when he noticed Johns interest in them.

"I'm going to sleep." John plainly stated as he pulled his sneak suit hood over his head, making his his whole body invisible.

"Not a bad idea." Orin responded laying down on his board.

Note this is not the end.

Ps I'm working on editing it, I've gone through it a bunch of times but it is 16 pages.


	7. Blood

Part 2: Unkown

John slowly woke up to coughing, he felt his lungs filling up with dead tissue, he rolled over to the bank of the river, coughing up blood into the already tainted current.

He gazed into the reflection, his jet black hair was highlighted with the blood of the pretties he had killed, the scales of his sneak suit had red embedded in them, and its green camouflage pattern was tainted with a crimson shade, making it an odd shade of dark green.

"Unlock." John demanded to the suits artificial intelligence, the small clamps slowly disengaged, John quickly unclasped the top of the suit, withdrawing his arms from the suit, he slowly took off his blood soaked t-shirt and attempted to wring out the red from it.

"Hey john." Orin muttered, sitting up against a nearby tree.

John set down his shirt and looked at Orin, equally as drenched in crimson as John was. Orin slowly pulled off his hood and looked around, although the hood did have cameras and a decent HUD system but ,real vision was still superior.

John was thrown into a fit of coughing; he turned over to the river, more blood coming out.

"You haven't been this bad for a while…" Orin said, looking at the red river.

"Ya I think it's time." John was referring to having his lungs, every 2-3 years he had to have new clone ones replace the old ones, the warning signs that the current ones where giving up is sudden and rapid degeneration of them.

"But what was that she injected with you?" Orin asked, looking at the mark left on his neck.

"It was a antidote? I think? It seems to have worn off." John said, just as confused as Orin.

Orin slowly followed suit, taking off his suit leaving it a hunk of red scales on the bank of the Delaware. His red stained t-shirt was sticking to him, like the memory of the dead bodies.

Orin's gaze slowly drifted to the place where the tower had sunk, pieces of metal still floating in the water.

"Board" John ordered to his suit, it then sent a signal to the board which flew over to him. He slowly offloaded his gear from his mission onto the board's cargo compartment; he removed the knife from the board. He then kicked the board over water; it started to drift through the air.

John heard a snap, reacting on reflex he quikly rolled off the ledge a couple of feet from him with a dull _thunk. _John quickly put on the upper half of his sneak suit and demanded "engage stealth systems!" from it. A wave passed over him as the scales turned to a dark green, with a shade of red undertone in them.

John slowly climbed up back over the hill to see Orin surrounded by 6 fully clothed figures, hoods and masks and more people were approaching. He saw one of the mysterious figures draw something, a small weapon it looked like, and proceeded to threaten Orin. John slowly approached them, they were standing in a circle around Orin, with one of them interrogating him personally, it was easy for john to sneak up to one of them. To make his move.

"Don't move an inch!" John demanded as he held up his knife to the throat of one of the masked figures.

"Hey you put that down!" John demanded to the figure that was interrogating Orin, the weapon turned out to be a Thin shock stick, used for stunning, or if modified correctly, killing victims.

"Nice and easy." John said as the figure slowly placed the rod on the floor.

"Now back away!" john demanded as he tightened his grip on his hostage and his knife.

"BACK AWAY!" john demanded, slowly cutting the cloth protecting the hostage's neck, a small trickle of blood going down his neck.

The interrogator slowly backed away.

"Now you put that down." John heard from behind him, the reinforcements have arrived and had him trapped. John felt a shock stick buzz above his shoulder, electricity emanating towards the plates on his suit.

John slowly withdrew from his hostage; he began to put the knife down.

But the direction of the knife quickly changed , contacting the stomach of the stranger behind him, this made the stranger release a long yell, he dodged the falling shock stick and then impaled his previous hostage. He removed the knife and ran Towards Oren , he put the knife against Orin's throat.

"Just play along and we should be out if this in no time." John whispered through the hood of his suit, a slight nod from Orin meant he knew. He turned and slowly started to withdrawal, dragging Orin along with him.

"Orin?" they heard from one of the masked figures.

"Cécile**? **Orin responded, looking at the hooded figure that had spoken to him, the figure removed the mask to show a Ugly girl, around the age of 15.

"It's them." Cécile said to the group, who all lowered there shock sticks and broke formation.

"Mind letting me in?" John whispered to Orin.

"When I know I'll tell you, just let me go." Orin responded, John released him sheathing his knife, and giving Orin a gentle nudge forward.

Orin and Cécile approached each other meeting in a kiss. He then proceeded to ask:

"Why are you here?"

"When you told me of your "mission" and you dint show up after so long I figured something was wrong, so I got some friend to come help and we here we are." She finished.

"When where you gona tell me about her?" John jokingly demanded, waving his arms for emphasis. Since John and nobody else heard there private conversation an awkward silence fell.

"Sometime…. Well John meets Cécile." Orin said, stepping out of the way as John walked up to shake her hand. John removed his full face hood to show his face.

After the formalities were done John simply stated. "Now that you all know who we are could I bother you by having your faces revealed?"

Slowly one by one the strangers removed there masks to revealed uglys, just tricking uglys.

"And just gona ask, what do we do with them?" John asked, kicking one of the injured uglys who let out another yelp.

"Who will notice a couple more dead bodies in the river?" Orin responded

"Orin! Those are my friends!" Cécile responded, giving Orin a kick in the leg.

"Good point, remove the teeth and cut off the fingers." Orin added.

Cécile kicked Orin again, and then motioned for two of the uglys to help them.

"Board!" John demanded from his suit and the board shot out from over the water to where he was standing.

"There should be something to help them in this." John said as he kicked his board towards the injured uglys.

"Hey honey why are you all wearing those suits?" Orin asked looking at the gang of black wearing uglys.

"Diving suits, we figured you all were trapped down there-" she responded pointing out the almost invisible breathing system built in.

"Not that I don't appreciate the thought but-"Orin started but john cut him off.

"Everything down there is dead."

After a awkward moment they heard "The real question is what are YOU wearing!" a male uglie responded pointing at John.

"Stealth systems engage." John whispered to his suit, the suit faded into the background but a still a red tint hung over the suit.

"Stealth systems deactivate." John ordered a couple of seconds later, John slowly reappeared, the scales on the suit turning black.

This answered all questions.

The new cumbers earned a new found respect; anyone that could acquire sneak suits had some serious connections or was hardcore.

"Now kiddies I will be off, Orin you coming?" john asked as he walked over to his hover board and slowly walked onto it.

"Kiddies?" One of the uglys asked, figuring that John wasn't much older than him.

"Ya, call me when you've taken down a major piece of architecture." John responded, slowly hovering up.

"Ya, honey ?" Orin asked looking at Cécile as he called his hover board

"Gota sort this mess out." Cécile responded motioning towards the severely injured uglys.

"Have fun." John responded as he and Orin flew off.


	8. Burn

John flew through the open air, looking below at the river. He reached the bank of the river and slowed down, to weave through the trees.

He arrived at his old place, putting a leg through the window he quickly called out to Orin:

"Hey."

"Hey, wanna hear something interesting?" Orin asked from the couch.

"Not really." John jokingly stated.

"I got a message from Cécile, she wants us to attend her groups meeting, they gona do some sort of prank or something."

"The chick?" John asked as he unclasped the top of his sneak suit, his new casual wear.

"Ya." Orin nodded in response

"When?" John asked, grabbing a can of ice tea from the mini fridge.

"20 minutes." Orin responded. Closing the electronic pad, he threw the paper like device onto a table then looked up at John who through a can over to him.

"And she tells us now?" John asked, opening the can.

"Well technically 4 hours ago but…." Orin started.

"And finally but not least where?" John asked.

"A study room!" Orin said, he and John immediately burst into laughter, only the most immature and failure of groups held meetings in study rooms.

"Ready?"

"Ya sure." Orin responded as he stood up, slowly brushing food particles of the black metal scales of his suit.

They left the room, changing the black scales to a dorm plaid.

The walk wasn't far, just up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. They slowly approached the door that had been mentioned in the message and set the suits to default black then proceeded to open the door.

"It's locked." Orin said as he tried to open the door again.

"Stupid." John stated as he took out 2 small, thin pieces of titanium, picking lock was annoying process. After about a minute he heard an almost inaudible click. John tapped Orin on the shoulder and they both activated the stealth systems of their suits. Orin slowly opened the door and walked in to see a bunch of uglys sitting around a table looking at something being projected onto a wall.

They hadn't been noticed; Orin put his hand on johns shoulder letting the suits systems carry their words.

"Have fun, I got my own prey." Orin said, his outline was highlighted with a red light, Johns suit could recognize a friendly suit. Orin pointed to Cécile, and slowly slinked off towards her. John, overhearing the majority of their plan slowly edged towards the white board where the plan was being projected. He glanced over to see Orin slowly edging towards Cécile. John slowed down even more as he got next to a board he grabbed a marker, no one seemed to notice.

From what he heard there plan involved sneaking books out 1 by 1, the plan seemed pointless and wouldn't even work anyway.

John looked over at Orin who was crouching behind Cécile, he gave John a thumb up, Orin new john was gona do something but not exactly what.

John slowly edged to where some sort of schematic was being projected on the white board, he slowly wrote:

_YOUR PLAN SUCKS!_

Write when he finished and puzzling expressions appeared on all the uglys faces Orin rotated Cecile's chair, pulled off his mask and kissed her.

Everyone in the room had a shocked expression on their face. John pulled of his hood and deactivated his stealth systems, two black-crimson intruders stood in the room.

"Who are you?" an ugly spoke up looking at the intruders.

"The people that you invited." John stated, leaning against the board and looking all of the uglys straight in the eye.

"Orin?" Cecile's muttered a shocked look on her face.

"Who else?" Orin responded, waving his hand in the light trail of the projector, black splotches appearing on the other side of the room.

"YOU BASTARD!" An Ugly yelled, standing up and jumping over the conference table, a pocket knife flashing in the dark. The ugly held the knife a couple of inches below johns ribs, an instant kill.

John recognized the ugly as one of them that he had stabbed the previous day, the uglys hand was trembling, it was clear that there was a internal battle between revenge and his conscious in the ugly.

"Stab me "John commanded looking at the ugly.

"SHUT UP!" the ugly responded, preparing to strike John,

"Don't do it, it was all a mix up yesterday." Cecile yelled at the ugly.

"No really do it." John said again, the ugly's hand trembled even more.

"Ya, stab the bastard!" Orin called to the Ugly, Orin was quickly reprimanded by Cecile with a minor kick.

Soon a chorus of stab him stab him arose from the group of uglys.

The ugly, his hand trembling more and more. The ugly finally gather the courage to stab John, he brought his hand back preparing to stab him and he finally shot it forward, but the result was unexpected. The knife shattered, the blade braking when it came into contact with the armored scales of the sneak suit a shocked expression came over the ugly who dropped the handle of the knife.

Both john and Orin burst into a bellowing laughter, it was soon joined in by Cecile and the rest of the uglys.

An ugly spoke up, someone that hadn't been their last night. "Sort of out of topic but what's wrong with the plan?"

"One where are you gona put the books?" John asked looking at the group.

"dorms." The ugly responded.

"That's stupid, two why the fuck are you doing this, there gona catch you pretty quickly. It's not even a cool trick." Orin added in, taking a chair and putting a arm around Cecile.

"Well do you have a plan" the ugly responded, switching his gaze quickly between John and Orin.

"As a matter of fact-"Orin started

"Yes" John continued.

"It is?" The ugly responded.

"First we break into as many dorms as we can and disable as many bungee jackets as we can, we also will need to seal the ground doors and ground level windows."

"Amazing plan" one of the uglys responded, but was quickly silenced by his curious comrades.

"Then we pull a fire alarm." Orin continued

"After that all the uglys will proceed to go to the roof and try to jump off the building, to escape the fire." John explained.

"You know if there actually is a fire that's mass murder." A random ugly cut in.

John quickly searched through his pockets of the sneak suit; he finely found what he was looking for, a small vial filled with a white gas.

"This is A-34, a potent knock out gas, a vial this big can put down a entire dorm." He passed the vial to an ugly sitting nearby.

"Another side effect of this is a burning sensation; it is usually described as being on fire." John continued. John went searching through all his pockets again but coming up empty he heard a high pitched whistle, and a small black device came flying from Orin.

"This is a holographic projector." John set down the device on the table; activating it a small flame appeared, hovering in mid air. One of the uglys reached over to wave her hand through it, as she did burn marks appeared on it, but disappeared as she withdrew.

"These projectors can cover an entire building." John finished, leaning back against the white board, the metal scales cruelly scraped against the board.

"What do you need?" one of the uglys asked, standing up to walk up to the board.

"All the men you can spare and a list of all the gear you got available." John responded to who he presumed was the leader.

The leader grabbed electronic pad and handed it over to John. Suddenly a coughing fit fell over john, blood and lung tissue fell out of his lungs, spilling on the perfect table and carpet. John began to collapse; he managed to catch himself on the table, more blood spilling out onto the wood. The uglys slowly backed off, everyone knew that the disease that john had become incredibly infective in the final stages of lung failure.

Orin quickly got up and started to run to aid his friend but something grabbed onto the thick scales of his sneak suit.

"What are you doing?" Cecile asked looking at Orin like he was insane.

"I had the shot." Orin responded, Cecile let go of him and he quickly rushed off. The shot he was talking about was the only know vaccine for the disease that infected John and so many others, the major drawback is that the vaccinated, had the symptoms of the disease in its worst state of degeneration for a month. Due to this it was voluntary.

Orin helped john stand up, he slung johns arm over his should and helped him to walked over to the wall and lean against it.

"Now if you don't mind I'm gona take my leave." John made a couple of steps towards the door but collapsed, the thick scales clashed with the floor, tearing it up. Blood continued to spew out of Johns crippled lungs.


	9. Blaze

"Hey sleepy" John heard, he looked around. He was in his old dorm, in his old bed. He spotted Orin sitting at his desk and Cecile leaning against the door way a couple feet back.

"What happened?" John asked, sitting up against the wall.

"You collapsed at the meeting." Orin said tilting the chair forward.

"Ya, in a pool of blood." Cecile added in, shifting her position.

"O ya I went to the hospital, there gona have a new set ready in a month." Orin added. Of course Orin was referring to a new set of kidneys, but until then John would become incredibly contagious.

"What did you guys think of the plan?" John asked looking in Cecile's direction.

"It was good they all just seemed to have 1 question, how are we gona get out of there, the gas would knock us out too." Cecile responded.

"O ya, had that planned out, we have to raid a ESC center for the supplies, gas masks."

"Well that is ambitions." Cecile said. ESC stood for emergency supply center, that's where the city kept emergency supplies. John could Order a mask but he couldn't order the amount needed by the group, Uglies could only order a limited amount of stuff but Pretties did not have that restriction.

John slowly started to get out of bed, he order to Cecile "tell your people to meet me at the bank, 2 am. And bring as much stealth gear as you can." Cecile nodded and walked off, leaving Orin and John alone.

"O ya I got some stuff to do see you at 2" John said as he staggered out to his waiting board at the window.

****10 minutes later****

"Hey room" John greeted the walls.

"Hello John" the room responded.

"I would like to place a requisition." John ordered to the room.

"Yes?" the room responded, ready for the order.

"Air filter, best you can find, and nano-paint, linkable to a larger AI." With this John would be able to add a filter onto his sneak suit, and it would still have the camouflage ability of the rest of the suit.

"Delivery and pick up?"

"2 hours, can be picked up at Bing requisition center now."

"Gona pick it up." John said to the room. He went out to the window and got on his board.

**** one hour later****

John carefully opened the box marked John Clark. He slowly took off his sneak suit, and set it on the table, one of the only pieces of furniture in his rarely used room. He slowly started to adjust the armor, carefully adding the filter onto the suit, then coating it in the paint. It worked perfectly; an added effect is that now the other members of the group could not get infected now.

**** 1:45 AM****

John slowly approached the spot where he had first met the Ugly Group.

Orin along with Cecile and the rest of the group came around 2 AM, all dressed in black, similar to when they had first met.

"Ready?" John asked from his seat at a base of a tree.

"Sure" Orin responded, gliding in on his hover board

John stood up and got onto his board and rose a couple of feet to be at eye level with the rest of the group, there were 8 of them about half as many when they first met.

They flew near the ESC and dismounted from their boards, hiding them in a forest outside of the building. They slowly approached the building, they slowly approached the door.

"I'll cut the lock out." John whispered to the Uglies. As he withdrew the same metal cutter they had used on the tower and began to cut through the door, sparks started flying through the air but it did not take long for the lock to fall out and the door to pop open.

John slowly entered and motioned for the other to follow him, he entered the room, pulling and sealing his hood, and he brought up a map overlay.

The building was just a massive warehouse, rows of shelves and shelves. He led the group down seemingly endless rows of supplies until they came across an aisle that read

_Chemical and biological _

The row was filled with crates, the various crates held NBC suits, Medical kit for treating chemical burns , and finally they came upon what they were looking for , a large crate of Gas Masks.

He motioned for two of the uglys to go and pick up the crate. They began to bring it back to the hover boards waiting outside.

Along the way John lead them to numerous crates which were hauled out until there was just John and Orin left. They slowly walked down more aisles, the empty dark aisles was like walking in a mansion alone. They finally came across the last crates.

"Grab those." John said pointing to a box of batteries; Orin slowly grabbed it and brought it out onto the floor. John grabbed a box of radios and stacked it on top of the other. They both grabbed the handles on the bottom crate and with a grunt they brought it out. They slowly walked to where the hover boards had been hidden so see the Uglies attaching the boxes to the boards. Orin and John roped the two boxes onto John's board.

They slowly, with the over weighed boards flew to bunker, standing outside of it they dismounted and detached the crates from the boards.

"Everyone take a gas mask and a radio; bring some for your friends to. Also tell them to meet us at 2, tomorrow night." The Uglies slowly disbanded after gathering their gear, they flew off into the night.

"Kind of surprised how well that worked." Orin said, as John opened the door to the bunker.

"Ya-"John got cut off by a spell of coughing but this one was not that bad.

Over the next hour they slowly brought the boxes inside to a storage room.

**** The Next Day****

Throughout the last half a hour people have showed up, one by one.

"So right now, we are going to place the holographic emitters, and rig the bungee jackets." The uglys slowly nodded.

"We are going to do the first Dorm together, East Wind, and then we will split up into teams."

They slowly got onto the boards and flew towards East wind; they landed on the rood with no difficulties.

"Does everyone know how to disable a bungee jacket?" John asked looking at the group of Uglies sitting around.

Most of the Uglies nodded but some looked confused. John walked up to a rack of bungee jackets and took one off.

"Step 1; remove the plating covering the battery." John slowly removed the plating to expose a battery. He then removed the leads connecting the battery to the jackets systems.

"Step 2 disconnect battery leads." John said as he finished disconnecting the leads.

"Step 3 reattaches the plating and put it back on the rack." John finished reattaching the plating and put the jacket back on the rack.

"Now let's finish." The group slowly proceeded to disable the jackets, the speed steadily increased as the group got more comfortable.

Orin the proceeded to divide up the group into teams of two and give them the dorms they were to disable.

It turned out that Cecile thought it would be funny if John was paired with some random ugly, not surprising at all.

"And almost forgot, seal the doors and windows with the nano-glue, 8 hour timer on it." John finished, the uglys slowly braking up and flying off to sabotage their selected areas. After about a minute there was only John and An ugly standing on the roof.

"Ready?" The ugly asked, looking at John as he called his board.

"Ya sure, what's your name anyway? John queried, stepping up onto his board.

"Tran, and yours, our fearless leader?" Tran responded, finally getting onto his board.

"John, we should get going to our target." They flew slowly; John had to slow down, since the ugly were not very skilled at boarding. At the slow pace it took them half a hour to get to the dorm, John broke off from the Ugly.

"I'll get the floor, start on the jackets." John said, his voice carried to the radio by his suit.

John slowly descended to the floor and began to put the glue on the doors and windows, he tuned into the general frequency to hear the uglys bantering, not surprising.

"Do you think it will work?" an ugly asked.

"Of coarse it'll work, we spent too much time on it for to not to work!" another ugly responded.

"Stop clogging the airways with your stupid chatting, there is nothing we can do to make it work or not work so just shut the fuck up for three seconds?" Cecile furiously yelled.

John switched frequencies to his team's frequencies. He slowly finished the last window and flew up to the roof to help Tran on the jackets.

"So what is it like to have the…" Tran asked, finishing a jacket and putting it back onto the rack.

"Well it sucks." John responded, he turned his face, a chrome black wall covered his face with a small metal filter sticking out near the bottom.

"If this filter stopped working." John said, pointing to the filter on the mask. "Stops working you and have the group will have my favorite condition."

"Is it really that easy to catch? Cause if it was half the city would have it by now." Tran responded.

"Mm ya, let me tell you a funny story. One day, I reached critical infectivity, which happens about every 2-3 years. So one day I showed up to class, and out of nowhere I started coughing up blood, like the other day at that meeting. Within 5 minutes the dorm was evacuated and wardens in sealed suits came to lock me in my dorm, for 2 weeks."

"So all of us could be infected?" Tran asked, with a shocked expression on his face, looking straight into John's eyes.

"Yup, anyway how'd I get out of there? I must weigh a 150+ with the suit and all." John asked.

"Orin and Cecile amazingly." Tran stated, figuring that John had a shocked expression under his hood.

The silently finished the work then proceeded to go to their next Dorm, flying at higher speeds this time. When they got their John started on the jackets and Tran went down and seal the doors.

They finished, relatively quickly taking 2 hours to finish, when they were done dawn began to break.

"Team three finished." John reported, after he switched to the general frequency.

"That just leaves team 2 and 6, come to the bank." He heard from Cecile.

"K, seya there." John responded as they flew towards the bank, as they flew the other teams finished and were waiting there.

"Ok so we got it all split up , John, you're going to have to hit 3 of these dorms tomorrow, we got people there but they will be in classes. You won't have to activate the alarm just release the gas and set the generators." Cecile through a list over to john with the names of the dorms he had to visit.

"And people although it would be hilarious for some of you to forget your mask and get knocked out remember to have it on you when the gas is released." John announced to the group.

They slowly split up from there, uglies wandering off to get some much needed rest or go to classes; the sun was beginning to rise setting the sky blood red. All that remained was Orin and john, they stood there, there energy both low due to the tedious work.

"You got classes?" John asked looking as Orin slowly walked up to him, John slowly slid down, resting his back on a tree.

"Not for a couple of hours, my first class is when we gona release it."

"Should go get some rest, you'll need it."

"You shouldn't be speaking; you haven't slept for like 8 times longer than I have." Orin responded, also sitting down.

John slowly set a alarm for 11:45, 15 minutes before the first gas would be released, he would have to go to three dorms and activate 3 projectors and release 3 canisters of the gas. John slowly fell asleep, setting his suit to blend into the background, sometime Orin left, probably to get some sleep in a bed or for class.

****11:45****

"11:45, 11:45" The suit buzzed, the electronic sound going into his brain and waking john up.

"I'm up" John responded, quieting the suit. He slowly stood up, still leaning on the tree. A shiver went through him as he remembered the day that he had woken up blood soaked on the bank.

He slowly got up onto his board and flew to his first target, never hurts to start early. As he approached the building he could see a crowd of uglies standing on the roof, all panicking. Some of them had bungee jackets on but they were dead, it had worked out perfectly. He slowly took out a remote and activated the 3 projectors, as three fires all at once springing up on 3 buildings, adding to the already blazing ugly town. He changed his sneak suit to a dorm plaid and jumped onto the roof, getting seen by a few uglies but they were already so panicked that they dint seem to mind, he pulled his hood over his head, double checking the seal he released the gas, pretty quickly a ugly yelled, trying to scratch the burning as the holographic fire reached his skin, plus the gas made the sensation of being on fire pretty realistic, after a couple of seconds the yelling increased and uglies began to drop, a dull thud ringing out. After a couple of seconds of walking through the unconscious bodies a small metallic glow stood out and John bent over.

After a second of inspection "moron" slipped from johns lips as he grabbed a gas mask from the hand of a ugly that had fallen to the floor. He called his board and put the mask into the cargo department and he quickly flew to the next target, over there the fire was already high in the air and several uglies were yelling, he saw the lights of a couple of gas masks. He quickly jumped off the board and activated the gas, several uglies were still standing after the gas was released, and he looked up at one of them, the masks black eyes sending shivers through him.

"So it worked?" John asked, calling his board.

"Ya, you should have seen it when the pretties started to cry." Slowly more masked figures approached him. "Well I'm off seeya guys later; you should probably make yourselves scares." John called his hover board and flew to the next dorm; the smoke was everywhere making it almost no visibility.

John stumbled through the smoke to release the gas, like usual figures began to drop but after a couple of seconds masked figures to began to drop, a small black creature was leaping through the air and taking them down.

The sound of a L.A.Z.E.R connecting with his suits systems sounded and a voice came into johns mind "if you want to live run, get on your board and head straight to the river."

"Who are you-"John began to ask but was quickly cut off by the voice again.

"Who I am of no importance, but if you wanna live FLY TOWARDS THE RIVER!" john quickly ran towards the edge of the building, he jumped off calling his board; it landed beneath his feat right before he hit the ground. He quickly flew towards the river, black shapes following him they were slowly gaining on him.

John pushed his board, he hadn't gone this fast since he had first got the board. The bolts started to shake as he accelerated.

"Make a sharp right turn In 100 feet." The voice said, the black shapes slowly gained on John.

John obeyed the command and turned, he almost fell off the board, and the sneak suits scales on the bottom scraped the top of the board.

"Right turn NOW!" the voice order, john turned he was in-between 2 building, with only about 2 feet of space for him. The sides of the board were scraping the concrete and metal building , sending sparks flying through the air.

"Jump when the space opens, send the board going right, and jump to the left." The voice ordered.

John obeyed the command, it was a 4 story drop, branches and trees interfered with the fall, desperately slowing him down. When he finally hit the ground he heard a snap, a wave of pain emanated from his leg.

"Look for a small camouflaged bundle. When you find it inject the needle, it will go through the scales." The voice continued.

John searched for a couple of seconds; the black shapes that had pursued him were flying above, chasing the rider less board. He finally found the aforementioned bundle, it had camouflaged scales like his suit did, making it almost invisible. He opened it , to reveal a syringe and a small piece of paper.

"Follow the Orders." The voice ordered, a sound notified him that the connection was cut off with his unknown rescuer.

John opened the paper, there was a message printed on it.

_The syringe contains nanos to fix your leg, and the same shot that fixes your condition, at least for a short time. Be at East Wind, 400 hours tomorrow._

John injected the syringe into his neck then stuffed it and the note and the small scales into a pocket in his sneak suit. Slowly black began to drip down on his vision, clouding it and johns senses began to cloud, and slowly they faded out of existence.


	10. Sunken

"Grab him"

"He's heavy! Why don't you help?"

"Cause im busy being boss!"

John slowly opened his eyes to see two teenage boys, they were strange, they both had weird plastic in their eyes , and they were both short, they couldn't be over 5 feet and 6 inches, incredibly short even for young teens. They were highly experienced though, they did their job easily, like they had done it many times before , they were veterans.

The second boy joined in and through john on a surface, seemed like a hover board but was much thicker and larger. It sent shock waves of power through the ground , particles of dirt flying up into the atmosphere

"you got the mag-sled?"

"ya sure" The other boy responded as he hooked something up to the front of the presumed mag-sled, it rose a couple of feet and then accelerated .

"River under?" One asked, stepping onto one of the waiting hover boards, his clothes were natural, cotton? Something seemed off about this pair, nothing major but little things had up.

"Ya, straight." The other one acknowledged, hovering up a couple of inches, it appeared that he had been standing on it but it had been on ground level, how odd.

They seemed to talk in a weird, unknown dialect. They had an unknown coordination, working as though they were one mind; no one had the kind of coordination. They had read in school that rusty's could have their brain waves synchronized, they used to enslave people that way but , it did not look like that , they seemed to have free will and they did not look like rusty's, for the most part.

They accelerated down the buildings, the scales of the suit magnetized to the sled but soon, quickly, lights started to chase them. The Duo was moving extremely fast considering that john was strapped to the back and that they were making very tight turns, maneuvering swiftly.

"o shit, the fizz." One of them frantically yelled, accelerating as fast as he possibly could, but the lights still closed in. The metal on the well built mag-sled began to shake, the screws rattling in the positions, but it looked like they had the strength to remain in their position.

"We are gona have to cut him!" One of them yelled, the winds almost ripping always his words as they flew through was seemed to be a forest, but it was clear they were coming across some sort of beach.

"ya , take my board!" one of them said as he kicked his board towards the other and jumped onto the mag-sled, it was one seamless motion , almost graceful but at the same time extremely clunky and rustic, he quickly fiddled with some controls which started to make it slow down and drift from the hover board, the teen jumped back onto his board which was attached to his friends board, it slowly drifted away and took its own path, they continued, flying incredibly fast but it was clear, from johns view point that they were not able to outrun the pursuers forever.

"O shit." One of them muttered as crimson blood started to trickle down his shirt, he cringed as the pain went through his injured body, he tried to stand up but the pain overwhelmed him.

"Well just hold on, these govy scums got nothing on us." The non-injured one responded, flying closer to his friend to help him stand up straight, if he wasn't solid in his position his board could tear him in half by accident.

"Says the man that isn't having a class 3 hemorrhage." The injured one responded, more blood continuing to spill out of the wound, he cringed more and started to wobble , it was clear that he was bleeding seriously.

"Just hold on , old dock will stitch ya up when we get back ." The other one responded, it was clear that he was lying , but it was a good lie, it probably helped them live a couple more seconds.

"If we get back"

The one that was dripping in crimson started to lose balance and shake , focus falling out of him as the board started to shake and shimmer, it was clear that he was losing control , and he was flying rusty style, no backups. They were quickly approaching a shore, rocks and dirt deadly landing.

He kept loosing balance until he fell off, breaking his neck against the rocks and spreading crimson and guts everywhere a terrible sight in the clean sparkling city. It was a brutal death, but the city almost made it look beautiful, so sad.

The second one kept flying, the last dregs of his strength falling away with the sight of his dead friend. Quick black shapes jump out of one of the hover boards and tackled the boy to the ground, he lifted his head to defy him.

" I don't wanna hurt you but I will if I have to!"

"Go to hell feddie!" The boy responded, biting down on something … Cyanide.

From a balcony two men looked down at what just happened, studying the incident.

"They always won't give up…"

"Well its better than being wiped, I'd rather live on my feet then die on my knees."

"We ever gona get them back?"

"Doubt it, one of them is sinking towards the bottom of a river wearing solid steel …"

"We gona get him?"

"ya…"

One of them turned to walk away , but he turned his head before he began to walk.

"we're still on our knees now."

The water surrounded him , he was slowly sinking towards the bottom of the river, he kept breathing but the pressure of the water was crushing him and his lunges, even though there was air it was so difficult to breath that it seemed pointless. He tried to swim but the metal scales were so heavy that he could no longer resist, he gave up and the sinking continued faster, the light from the sun above diminishing.

"Armor integrity 20%, 20 minutes remaining"

"Shut up"

"Command not recognized, please restate request."

"Lock armor"

The suits scales connected together, john tried to move but it was not possible. In a mode like this they could last for hours, not there 20 minutes previously mentioned.

He slowly kept drifting, until he hit the bottom with a metal clink. He kept shifting his weight till he managed to turn over, he saw something, a metal door, it was heavily rusted and was once painted with vibrant colors , but that was a long time ago.

"Disengage locks."

"Warning suit will only last 5 minutes."

"Override."

He used his last strength to dust of the door, river much slowly moving away, the dirt water crowded his vision but the doors bright florescent paint shown out against the dark surroundings.

He used his last strength to open to door, the equalized pressure made it extremely easy to open, sliding on once oiled hinges. He jumped through, the door quickly slamming shut right after he entered. Dim lights shown through the crimson water, half decayed bodies floating in the water.

He slowly swam towards a whole in the ground , he swam through and kept swimming until he got towards a box with a electrical sign on it. He quickly grabbed some cables, a live charge going through them .

"open conductive points , prepare to receive charging." He ordered to the suit , confidence slightly restored in his voice.

"warning , corrosive water will damage conductive points."

"Override."

"Charging"

Pressure started to lift away as the suits internal systems jumped to life as the electricity flowed into the suit. He sat there for a while , letting the batteries charge , more systems coming to life and the HUD changing from a glass like window to being lightened up with displays and information. He drifted there for a couple of minutes, pressure being lifted by his body as the suit responded, power was nice.

"Power status?"

"30%"

"Close contact points"

A almost inaublible click sounded as the scales clicked shut, John kicked off from the wall and flew towards the center, a computer station. He pushed a button, a hum came out from the computer station as it slowly came to life. He quickly by passed the security system, going right around the OS and though the backups, what morons left a unprotected backup that could be accessed by the BIOs. He quickly entered a series of commands, the doors quickly slammed shut and a force field appeared over the gap in the ceiling above, the water slowly started to drain out, leaving only a heavily damaged command center, corrosion damage evident, everywhere. What if…

He sat down, there was nothing to do , if he tried to make it to his surface he would be crushed by pressure long before he could make it to the surface. If he managed to rig a bungee jackets battery to through him upwards he would still be crushed by the pressure. There wasn't nearly enough power in the systems and the magnetic systems were already incredibly damaged before corrosion.

The first day being stuck down there was terrible, waves crashing into the sunken tower, he spent most of his time pacing, thoughts passed through his mind, what if someone came down to rescue , what if he died there, what would his parents think happened to him , what would his friends think, what would the government say.

The second day just got worse, hunger and thirst knawed at him, driving him insane, boredom was also terrible, it seemed as though the metal doors were rusting in place and that escape was impossible. The force field seemed to falter, he would always see , in the corner of his eyes water gushing in but when he turned to face it , nothing came in. it was also on that day when the stop gap chemical for his disease gave up, it started suddenly but it continued, blood and lung tissue filled the floor of the room , and it just got worse from there.

On the third day it happened. Always the third…

"Galm, we got a mission for you."

" o, fun what's it this time."

"rescuing a wipe from the bottom of the river, its stuck in that tower we sank couple weeks ago."

"the bastard that sent Spence and Elliot to their death, why shouldn't we just let it die?"

"it used to be one of us…"

"ya, it…"

"and we get ?"

"I am your commander"

"was"

"and we get?"

"if we accidently leave him in a room with you…"

Instantly

"deal"

The silver suited figures quickly swam though the water, black synthetic muscles contracting and expanding with incredible strength, the pressure pushing down on them meant nothing. The advanced technology easily pushed through nature, they kept going .

They got towards the door and quickly slung it open , swimming through they swam through the bodies, quickly reaching the door, it was sealed shut , corrosion and rust sealing the door shut.

"You fucktard, you in there?"

"scum"

"trash"

John tried to respond but his mind was to scrambled and confused.

"whatever " One of the figures said , taking out a plasma cutter and effortlessly in les then a second cutting a human sized hole in the door.

They slowly proceeded into the room and looked around , it was clear that humans had occupied the area for a prolonged time. Water began to flood into the room , they did not have a lot of time if they wanted to save his life.

One of the figures grabed the near death black suited figure, the other one quickly advanced towards the computer mainframe , he slowly with practiced hands removed a metal gleaming device, it was woven into the complex computer system.

"ready."

"ya sure, I can see why they had a hard time carrying this fucking wipe with only a mag sled." The other responded, throwing the ugly over his shoulder. They slowly swam towards the surface, fins appearing on the surface of the suits.

"where am i?"

"hell"

A/U note : sorry it took so long , but been working on my other stories and slacking off.

A/U note note: check out my other stori , if you haven't already , D&A and please reveiew!


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